Global revenues from mobile advertising are estimated to cross $3.5 billion in 2010, according to new research from Informa Telecoms and Media.

The mobile advertising market has seen strong growth over the past year driven by the initiatives and investments of big players including Apple and Google and is expected to show strong growth over the next five years and generate revenues of around $24 billion in 2015.

?The fragmentation in the mobile advertising market looks unlikely to reduce anytime soon, and in fact may escalate due to possible anti-competitive practices of Apple, Google and other big players,? said Shailendra Pandey, senior analyst of mobile content and applications at Informa, London.

?This is surprising, because market fragmentation is the key issue these players talk about addressing but the strategies they are adopting is leading to more market fragmentation,? he said.

Informa Telecoms and Media is a provider of business intelligence and strategic services to the global telecoms and media markets.

Apple and Google's shares go up, carriers' shares go down
Informa believes that during this period, the share of mobile advertising revenues for the carriers will fall from around 26 percent in 2010 to an estimated 20 percent in 2015.

There is now an increasing number of successful mobile advertising campaigns and a lot of market activity including in-house innovation, partnerships, mergers and acquisitions.

Media and fast-moving-consumer-goods brands are also experiencing growing consumer engagement on mobile.

These developments are starting to provide the much-needed momentum that the mobile advertising industry needs, which will lead to accelerated growth in mobile advertising in 2011 and beyond.

Mr. Pandey said that the launch of Apple?s iAd advertising platform is forcing rivals to speed up their own mobile advertising strategies.

Google has responded by acquiring AdMob and has announced it is on track to generate $1 billion in revenues from mobile in 2010, a significant portion of which will be mobile advertising revenues.

Google has also reported a 500 percent growth in mobile search queries between 2008 and 2010.

The mobile advertising industry has moved ahead from the trial and experimental phase and many brands are now spending significant sums on mobile campaigns on a regular basis.

Mr. Pandey said that the investments from big players such as Google and Apple validate the market opportunity, resulting in brands and agencies more actively considering mobile for their campaigns.

In 2010, many carriers, including Orange, O2 UK, Movistar Spain, VimpelCom Russia, Maxis Malaysia and Claro Argentina, have launched services and trials to encourage their subscribers to opt in to mobile advertising and receive reward points in exchange for viewing ads on their mobile phones.

?It is becoming quite clear to the carriers that close partnerships with other value-chain players is essential and is a better strategy than attempting to build an in-house mobile advertising solution and their own creative and sales teams,? Mr. Pandey said.

Informa believes the mobile advertising market will go through a sustained period of consolidation over the next 12-18 months.

The big value-chain players have been on the acquisition trail for companies that will integrate seamlessly with their own platforms to ensure they have that end-to-end mobile ad-serving capability.

The key factors driving growth in the mobile advertising market are:

? Growth of subscriptions to data plans that include mobile Internet browsing

? Strong sales and adoption of smartphones

? Mobile applications market boom

? Google and Apple validating the market opportunity

? Mobile commerce market growth

? Improved analytics and reporting of metrics

?Mobile advertising needs to be integrated into a bigger mix of media to drive creativity and better response rates,? Mr. Pandey said. ?Also, having a mobile site is crucial for companies interested in a sustained and long-term mobile advertising strategy.

?A mobile site is also very useful for collecting consumer data and enhancing the company?s image,? he said.